Lewis on pole at inaugural Tuscan GP
Valtteri Bottas led all the way through practice. But Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton got the job done when it counted.
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Mercedes in good form, again! Lewis snatches pole
Lewis spent much of practice getting comfortable with the new track, nestled in the Tuscan hills, rather than chasing outright lap time. It was Bottas that led the way after Q1, but there was a few hundredths that separated them, and Lewis then ramped it up in Q2 to lead a session for the first time during the weekend.
In the first runs in Q3, Lewis once again set the pace, with Bottas within 0.06s, but all hope was not lost as there was still one run to go. However, Renault’s Esteban Ocon got it all wrong on his lap, spinning and bringing out the yellow flags, which forced much of the field to back off.
That gave Lewis his 95th career pole position and 69th for Mercedes, the latter figure higher than the career total of any other driver. With Bottas slotting into second, it gave Mercedes their seventh consecutive front row lockout – two short of their record set in 2014-15.
Red Bull occupy the second row
Max Verstappen went third quickest three tenths of a second adrift. The Dutchman nearly 0.5s clear of his Red Bull team mate Alex Albon. Alex looked in good touch in all the practice session and it showed in the Qualifying session. He may also be feeling a lot of heat since Gasly won the Italian GP.
Charles managed P5, much better than expected
Charles Leclerc was arguably the standout performer of the day with a fine – and unexpected – fifth place for struggling Ferrari. The team own the Mugello track and are celebrating a landmark 1,000th GP this weekend.
But that improvement for the Scuderia after a torrid Spa and Monza did not extend to Sebastian Vettel, who missed out on Q3 for the fifth consecutive race.
The four-time champion will start 14th, one place behind Kimi Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo.
Super Shock from Gasly!!
Arguably more of a surprise was the qualifying plight for F1’s newest race winner, Pierre Gasly. Six days after his stunning shock victory at Monza, the AlphaTauri driver dropped out in Q1 and will start 16th. Race winner Gasly struggled with understeer in his first run, leaving him in the drop zone, and while he improved second time around, the car still looked twitchy and he was bumped out by Vettel at the death. His team mate Daniil Kvyat faring relatively better at P12.
Decent job by Racing Point
Racing Point locked out row three ahead of Renault’s eighth-placed Daniel Ricciardo, although Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll will switch position from where they qualified after the former collected a one-place grid drop on Friday for colliding with Raikkonen in second practice.
Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo went eighth quickest, ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz. Ocon didn’t set a lap time in Q3 courtesy of his spin – rounding out the top 10.
Meanwhile in Q1, Russell briefly looked like he could cause a surprise but ran wide and bounced across the gravel to lose a bunch of time. He still managed to go faster on that lap than team mate Latifi, mind.
Giovinazzi is nothing but consistent. The Italian remaining the only driver to have got knocked out of Q1 at every race this season.
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